just rising to show him which was the east, and
already far down below he saw the ribbon of the Rhine which they must
cross; but sluing round to look back, he saw the thing he feared--an
escadrille of German aircraft rising from the plain over which the smoke
from the Zeppelin hangar still hung.

Already the enemy airmen were in pursuit!

Claude Laval had turned towards him at the same moment, and their eyes
met. He had seen it too, but the blanched face of the wounded man shone
with hope and confidence. His mouth opened, though the words were lost,
but he made a gesture with his sound arm, and Dennis understood.

They were heavy clouds to which Laval had pointed, and Dennis steered
straight for them, devouring the chart with his eyes.

Far down below and ahead of them in the extreme distance was the blue
line of the Vosges, and he thought he could distinguish the Ballon
d'Alsace, but of that he was not sure. His pursuers would naturally
imagine that he would make for the nearest point of the French frontier,
but that was not in his mind. If he had to deal with the fast-rising
Fokkers, his only chance he knew was to gain the cloud-bank and keep
within its protecting folds.

To fight with a wounded observer was out of the question, and already he
had decided to steer north-west rather than due west, which would bring
him, roughly, somewhere between Epinal and Nancy--always provided that
he was not overtaken.

There were a thousand risks to run, not only from the enemy fleet, but
from the French guns when he should come in sight of them; but as they
soared into the chill blanket of vapour his spirits rose, and for a
moment he shut off the engines to listen.

The whir and throb of their pursuers already seemed to come from every
point of the compass--from below, from either side and, what was more
alarming, from above; but banking sharply to the right he thrashed his
course at topmost speed, praying that the cloud-bank might not cease.

The baragraph showed him that he was already eight thousand feet above
the earth, and, straightening out the machine, he wiped the mist from
his goggles with the back of his glove and kept on.

All at once the Aviatik shot out of the cloud with a clear stretch of
sky in front of them, and, looking back and upwards, he saw the wicked
nose of a Fokker emerge into view on their right beam a couple of
hundred yards away and well above them.

Already their own machine was approaching